The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority has ruled that real estate developers must provide functional parking spaces to homebuyers and cannot rely on notional or paper allotments. In a recent order, the authority directed a developer to assign an alternative parking space until the originally promised slot becomes usable.
“The developer is under an obligation to provide a usable covered car parking space once consideration for the same has been collected. Mere paper allotment of a parking slot in a building which is under construction and not available for actual use cannot be treated as proper allotment of the promised parking facility,” the MahaRERA said in its order.
The regulator further instructed the developer to provide a ‘reasonably accessible’ parking space to the buyer within three months.
The dispute stems from a housing purchase in Pune, where a buyer booked an apartment in February 2020 along with a covered parking space. While possession of the flat was granted in March 2024, the buyer claimed that the allotted parking remained unusable as it was located in a structure still under construction. Instead, a temporary open parking space in another building was provided. The buyer also pointed out that the permanent parking was assigned in a different building from the one where the apartment is located, making it inconvenient and difficult to access.
In its defence, the developer argued that in large township projects, it may not always be feasible to allot parking directly beneath or adjacent to a residential tower.
“Homeowners who booked earlier naturally rank higher in the seniority list than those who booked later, and the allotment has been carried out strictly in accordance with the said seniority list without any deviation,” the developer said in its submission to MahaRERA.
While acknowledging that buyers may not have the right to demand a specific parking slot, the authority emphasised that the allotted space must still be practical and accessible for use.
Source: Hindustan Times
